Posts by TonyJ 1215 posts • joined 30 Dec 2010
What always strikes me with stories like this - it was the same in a fairly recent documentary I caught a bit of about The Sun stopping page 3 girls - was that the ladies themselves all seem to have actually enjoyed it and to have been both paid obscenely well, and actually, for the most part, well looked after.
I'm not suggesting it wasn't a good thing to have stopped it, just that as in most things in life, there's usually another angle that is often overlooked.
I have worked for similar bosses along those micromanaging types who get hot under the collar because you're not in constant contact with 15 second updates.
One thing I learned that I've stook to for close to the last 20 years - set your boundaries early and stick to them.
The company pays for 40 hours of effort a week. No, that absolutely doesn't include my missing a lunch break, working weekends and/or evenings except by exception. And that is in exceptional cirumstances and guess what? You're paying me for the privilege one way or another, whether in actual overtime or time off in lieu.
No, I won't be reading your emails past 17:30, or at weekends. No, I won't be answering my phone (if it is genuinely urgent and exceptional, leave me a voicemail and maybe text me as well).
Funnily enough, what caused me to adopt that attitude initially was when i joined large global company. During the interviews we agreed my salary and package to both of our mutual consent.
When I got the contract to sign, I noticed that the annual salary was 50 pence a year more than agreed which struck me as odd.
Still being relatively young and lackign in cynicism, I called their HR department to ask if they knew, was it ok, etc. and was told "Yes - that is how our grading structure just happens to work, don't worry about it"
And of course I had no reason to dispute it.
Fast forward a couple of months and I was asked if I'd work a weekend. Yes, sure, said me.
When I came to claim the overtime, I was told "Sorry you can't at that grade".
Indeed - up to £27,000.49p you were eligible for overtime. At £27,000.50p you were no longer eligible.
I told my boss there and then I would never work overtime again. Had they been honest about it, I'd have had a chance to discuss and argue and be aware but given the underhanded way it was handled I wad furious.
It was a bitter lesson learned hard (always make sure everything you agreed and even believe was agreed is in your contract. Always make sure calls etc to HR are followed up by an email) but it was also freeing - I realised you can tell management to suck it and by and large they just move on to someone more malleable.
"...(which as far as I can tell appears to be a re-badged dumbed-down version of Skype formulated purely so that Microsoft can sell the same thing twice to unwary businesses)..."
Actually you cannot get Skype for Business now on a new plan with MS - it's Teams and it's going away soon full stop.
And whilst I found it quite jarring at first compared to the simplicity of SfB, Teams has some advantages such as persistent messages in the chat windows, file storage and sharing (backed off to One Drive for Business and/or SharePoint).
It still isn't always the most seamless of UI's (in my humble opinion) but it's not that bad once you start to get used to it.
"...Icon: at work things got sane with Windows 2000. Very few issues. ME was utter madness...."
Weird how so many seem to think it went Windows 95, 98, XP.
Windows 2000 was a solid OS and of course was the first to introduce Active Directory. And was the first platform built on Windows NT, not XP.
Windows ME though...what the hell were they thinking?
"...- There seems to be a command history feature, but you got to figure it out and configure it prior to using it, so that thing is junk for my purpose...
That surprises me - it's built into the Windows version (up/down arrow keys) and even remembers commands run in the non-preview version and carries them over.
I'm surprised they've made that a faff. Seems somewhat self-defeating.
"... Foxes, rabbits, toads, et al
No place in Aus.
Not native.
Not dangerous enough..."
Reminds of the other Oz joke:
Scientists have just concluded the longest, most detailed study of the flora and fauna of Australia, to finally determine what is not harmful to humans.
And the answer is "Some of the sheep"
Ah yes... I'd forgotten the "it doesn't go" errors - most of which, as you say, were down to things like the person trying to send a fax to a phone or my personal favourite on a line that did both, the receiving person either picking the phone up and not then pressing start on their fax machine, or despite being told "I am about to send you a fax" not setting the machine to answer.
Ahh happier, simpler times.
...for Sharp Electronics UK.
Bearing in mind this was the -very- early 90's and home faxes were still new and to some folks, genuinely space-age.
I genuinely had to speak to customers (often of a more elderly persuasion) to explain one of two things: no, it really has sent it, even if you have the original in your hand (they honestly believed it somehow sent the original like a letter! Or (far more commonly) no, there is nothing wrong with either fax - try turning the one you're sending over...when they called to complain it was just blank at the receiving end.
You used to be able to put them into a diagnostics mode as well and one of the tests was the fax tones. I was so practiced, I could tell a duff modem chip just by the slight change in the warble.
Oh and then there was the time the MD brought a box in, plonked it on my desk and told me he'd told his mate I could fix his fax machine for him...he'd dropped it down several flights of concrete stairs.
The "repaired" one he got was made mostly of scavenged parts from previously scrapped units.
First they bought the amazing Squeeze company and after ruining an amazing product line, promptly dumped them.
That was unforgivable enough, but they've had a habit of doing the same thing and/or dropping support early into the life of products with little to no warning. Indeed, as I think back, a couple have been mentioned here.
Also for the record Teams can transcribe as well, not just Zoom and Google.
Mentioned it before but PC Specialist will also sell a PC or laptop without a Windows OS. True, it will ship with an unactivated copy of WIndows 10 that they use for burn-in testing and they don't actively support Linux but you can buy the machine sans license.
"...
truly was exposed for just 10 minutes as Keepnet claimed
Doesn't really matter. 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 days...
What matters is that it was exposed, and that it was noticed. And accessed..."
Quite. "I am sorry I murdered you but at least it was a quick death!." Still dead.
Could they not also be prosecuted under corporate manslaughter for the postmasters who sadly took their own lives?
People need to go to jail for this, pure and simple.
If it is proven in court that senior members of staff and the prosecution knew about the flaws AND withheld this from the courts AND continued their flawed prosecutions (and one has to wonder why) then each and every one of them up to and including prosecution lawyers and barristers needs to be held to account.
And I would even go so far as to say that they should be held personally financially accountable for victim reparation - they ruined lives and careers.
Surely the Post Office and Fujitsu should have been made to repay any monies they extorted from their victims, to pay compensation AND to cover the victims legal costs?
What a shit show.
I'm not sure why it was such an unpopular suggestion. I'd like to understand why the downvoters did so. Note: I am not taking it personally etc but I am genuinely curious why people seem to believe protecting victims of abuse shouldn't have options for all available protections to be looked at...if I missed something, I'd really appreciate the thoughts on what etc.
And... we're not talking about your mate down the pub, here, though. We're talking about a potentially very vulnerable person who has already been subject to abuse.
Steps are already taken to protect people in these situations from other forms of abuse. This would add another layer onto those protections, and prevent them from ever even seeing the abuse.
A report button is all well and good but it still means that the victim has to see the reference - that can be debilitating for them.
Nor am I suggesting that this is something needed in every single case, but as an additional layer of protections
...would appear to be for the banks to have some kind of facility to act as a proxy/escrow service. So there is an account number that isn't identifiable to the vulnerable customer and the bank then forwards payments in and out of that account but show a different set of details to other parties.
I know there'd be issues to be worked out but I can't see any other way as, as we know with spam filters, there are ways to slip phrases past any automatic filter.
Horrible the lengths some people go to to maintain their abuse of others.
How many times have HP now made staff redundant in the last decade?
How much can you "best shore*"?
In 2012 they were building a cloud offering that they later ditched because frankly even then it was AWS or Azure.
I really feel sorry for anyone caught up in this but I also wonder why anyone has stuck around so long.
*A genuine term they were using around 5 years ago.
Experience is everything here.
I did a recent project and the customer was insistent that UAT should be prescriptively scripted.
It took more than a few wasted hours in meetings to get them to finally see that doing that makes users do the tests in front of them and only the tests. They won't deviate and nor will they report any aberrant behaviour that isn't part of the scripted tests.
These are people we've picked who have years of experience using the software daily. Let them do their jobs as they normally would and report the issues they come up with.
Other tests along the way can be more formalised.
"...human nature being what it is, the more driver aids that are provided to make it "easier" to get your vehicle from A to B, the less engaged the driver is likely to become with the whole process..."
Cannot agree with this more. I've driven older, high performance cars such as 911's that only give power steering and ABS grudgingly, and even then, if at all if you're lucky. Stepping out of a modern car into something like that really reminds you as a driver how much you take the modern accoutrements for granted.
Suddenly finding you are the only thing controller 300+bhp in a read wheel drive car with no traction control and no ESP tends to make you pay a LOT more attention.
I had an S5. Four wheel drive and all the above aids and it drove like it was on rails while tending to stick to the road like glue. Even then it was terribly easy to speed because at 100MPH it was barely ticking over.
I had a tyre blow on a country road - twisty and turning so I wasn't going particularly fast but apart from the tiniest of wobble on the nose it pretty much carried on as if nothing had happened.
Driverless cars are, I believe, an inevitability but they do need to get much much better.
All cities are awful to drive in if you aren't from the area but even 20 years ago, Sheffield seemed to be taking a perverse anti-car stance.
I remember trying to get to an HSBC office. It had a car park and a parking space had been allocated for my arrival.
After circling the streets for around 25 or 30 mins - literally in view of said building - I could find no streets that I could legally drive down to get any closer. I ended up parking in a pay and display.
I asked someone when I got there and he had to draw me a map. I remember it being one of the most convoluted little sections of driving I've ever done, and if I recall, it meant crossing a pedestrianised area that if you hadn't been told otherwise, you'd have bet real money you would be fined for entering.
...a colleague and I used to wire all the RS232 connected terminals in, as well as cable any new phone extensions into the PBX.
I remember we had great fun using only green wires wherever we could get away with it, knowing that anyone following us in a few years would be fuming at the lack of additional colours.This was reserved mostly for where we had to put connectors through walls or make adapters of course - we had no choice in the colour of the cores in the main cable.
I do remember once wiring in about a dozen new phones and of course I had to test them so every time I connected on, I'd call it from another office.
Imagine my surprise as I walked into the office I'd been putting them in to see him pick up a ringing phone (not even one of the ones I'd put in) to hear him shouting down the phone "will you just fuck off?!? I'm busy!!!".
Apparently he thought it was me calling to test a line again and in his annoyance, didn't notice it was an external ring. Or an existing phone. He says it sounded like a very nice, very confused old lady on the other end of the line, just before he hung up in horror!
Happy days.
"...It never ceases to surprise me how stupid someone can be and still fit into society... then I realised it's the clever ones that struggle to fit in..."
Sad, isn't it? We have kids who "want to be famous" when they grow up. Not even in any specific area: just "famous".
We used to hold scientists and engineers in great esteem. They were people worthy of respect, whereas these days you get that if you can kick a ball around a field or pretend to be someone else on a screen.
That isn't to say they can't make mistakes or self-promote stupid ideas (or even dangerous ones) or succumb to money etc, but that's the beauty of science "so you claim this... let's replicate it and see if you're right".
Did you patch your vehicle before rolling it? Did you upgrade its safety systems? Did you amend the insurance contract before hand?
Sounds like what ever safety systems Your vehicle shipped with did their job, if you could have retrofitted newer safety systems could they have prevented the vehicle rolling?
My other half’s car has keyless entry and go, If the keys are near the front door crims could steal the car without gaining access to the house, putting the keys in a rf shielding bag or simply well away from the front door would defeat the crims, regardless If a patch is available or not, same goes for adding a steering wheel lock.
Different operating behaviour can be more effective than applying a patch especially when a patch might not be available...
Uhuhh...I don't know about you, but I don't have people remotely trying to compromise my vehicle in a mass non targeted kind of way. No one will slow any processors down because they are mining bitcoins or part of DDoS bot attack and it doesn't store any personal information about me that would be valuable, so why would they even bother if they could? Although see my later point re Tesla.
Nor do I have to worry that some oik in China will make the engine blow or the brakes fail.
My current vehicle also has keyless entry. They doors won't open unless they are within about 18" of the vehicle and it won't start unless the keys are inside the vehicle. Indeed, take them out when the engine is running and it tells you on the driver info display that they've been removed from the vehicle and the engine will be shutting down in xx seconds.
Also are you telling me that if you owned, say, a Tesla, with vulnerabilities that were detected that you'd be equally happy not to receive a patch?
Your arguments don't hold water.
"...You can still use banking apps on LineageOS, which is not rooted by default, and even root the phone if you install Magisk. I did this with my S5..."
Thank you - I was sure I'd read the Lineage was pre-rooted so that is good to know.
Alas things like Magisk are picked up (or were) by the Barclays app.
"...When have you actually benefited from a security update? Asked a different way, when has a security update actually prevented an attack on YOUR phone?..."
What a truly stupid comment.
How would the vast majority of people know?
How many consumers monitor (or even have) the logs for the firewall on their routers?
Let me tell you that some years ago when I finally moved away from the dumb ones to something that was grown up, the sheer volume of probing attacks from e.g. China and Russia was a real eye-opener.
Now I assume that the previous firewalls were blocking them but how would I know?
I rolled my motor vehicle last year. I've always worn my seatbelt. I've always had insurance (notwithstanding the laws on such things) - but that would be the first time in 30 years of really needing both.
Stop being a plum.
DooM 64 is good. Damnable hard end boss though.
DooM Eternal is not great. I will start by caveating that I loved DooM 2016 (or DooM 3 if you prefer) and loved it. I still occasionally replay it on arcade mode and even managed to finish it on Ultra Nightmare (permadeath - deletes your save game!).
DooM Eternal, though, to my mind, became very tedious, very quickly. The whole need to kill to get ammo, health etc means it is non stop slog with very little time to take a breath.
The parkour type levels just ruin the flow and add unnecessary complexity - there's an entire later level where you have to double-jump, then boost (and often then shoot or shoulder a target, or grab to hold) at that point, the thing you're holding starts to fall and you have almost no time to plan where to go next. Death becomes an inevitability).
Even the bosses become a combination of shoot the same area repeatedly or until something flashes then dash in and hit them.
It is also terribly easy to spend a long time scratching your head what you need to do to open a door or empty a pool or crash a statue and it stalls the
Beautiful graphics but really not great game play.
Yeah I did read the article but I was always taught that if you don't understand something, then to ask.
You are the typical twat that ensures some people are put off asking because they are scared of being scorned or looked down on., and supercilious put-downs are there for one thing only - to make small-minded idiots like yourself feel superior. In the meantime, I will continue to remain open minded and curious and to ask questions even if the asnwer is obvious to people like you.
Have a nice weekend - the view must be stunning for that ivory tower!
"...And yet, somehow, we're supposed to just trust that no one has stolen, or could ever steal, the Platform Security Processor master keys?
This should be a wake up call to anyone still willing to blindly trust AMD (or Intel!) for the continued security of their data..."
Genuine question but when it comes to general purpose computing (every day use cases such as Windows, Linux, people playing games), what, really, is the alternative?
Yes indeed. For example, I've always tried to support Timpsons since I heard a radio programme a few years ago where I learned they give jobs to ex-prisoners to help them back into society. Yesterday their owner said they've sent staff home on full pay for as long as they can do it.
Also Cisco are offering a free AnyConnect, unlimited user, 13 week license for people: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/anyconnect-secure-mobility-client/215330-obtaining-an-emergency-covid-19-anyconne.html
I know many folks here loathe MS but they're giving free Teams licenses to the NHS. Yes, they can afford it, but no they didn't have to do it.
There are others and I'd like to believe that they are remembered and supported after this finally blows over.
I had a similar thing about 18 years ago. Neighbour desperately wanted their internet back. I called round after work to be met with (I shit you not!) "Oh can you come back another time? I've got friends here and I'd be embarrassed having a nerd come in!"
When he collared me the following morning when I was walking to school to ask if I'd come round later, I made it very clear he could expect no help from me ever again. He was quite miffed "Can't you take a joke"?
My answer..."Apparently not, but I do know how to fix my internet connection"
".. He's just a bloke who runs a few companies...."
That managed to get away with calling a rescue diver a paedophile;
That was fined millions of dollars for making egregious comments about Tesla shares;
That has a large number of followers and should know that with that, comes a requirement to behave in a way that is generally not overtly odious.
I could go on but you get the gist.
"...It's fairly, but not entirely, implausible. I just put a mesh network (for that is all that this is) in my house, and 1) it reaches every room of my house now (as I put the disc-shaped objects in good places) and 2) I get massively improved speeds. For example, in my study, far away from my original router, I now get 109.3 Mbps using the network, as tested two minutes ago. Note that disc 1 of the mesh network is plugged directly into the router via cat6, so the (Virgin Media) WiFi is not used at any point...."
Personally, I prefer not to use any ISP provided equipment and to that extent I run a Sophos XG and use three AP55 access points.
The three give full coverage including the garden and the office in it. Anything that can use 5GHz tends to get the full 60'ish Mbps of the fibre.
Any two of them could actually provide the same coverage.
It handles all the PPPoE as well - interestingly when I first made the move (I'd had to stick with the original, truly awful, BT business business hub 3 for a good long while because of how BT did their static IP assignments) the connection speed jumped by around 15%.
When I moved ISP, it was a simple matter to update the PPPoE settings and keep all my other settings intact.
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